Friday’s choosing time found Lottie and friends drawing a map and pictures of some of the animals we had seen on African Safari….
… while Ellie and friends worked on their own story about Mantu the elephant.
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Day 6 found us in dangerous territory, getting far too close to the animals. This is how Year 2 described their adventure.
Daniel
The elephants were cool because we went down the waterfall and they were suddenly there. I found out a really interesting fact because I didn’t know that elephants have 100,000 muscles in their trunk….The elephants were using their noses as snorkels.
Charlotte J
We were following the river… We splashed against diagonal rocks. Down at the bottom there were some elephants grazing in an open space. From the corner of my eye I spotted some zebras drinking, hidden behind the grey, ginormous elephants.
Alex B
Today was the most panicking but most amazing day because our bar went to the red… My heart was pounding with fear because we were far too close to the animals.
Christopher S
A mother elephant washes its baby by sucking up water and spraying the baby two or three times. There was an elephant using its trunk as a snorkel because it wanted to swim underwater. Near a shallow river there was long grass. In the long thick grass there were some small and big warthogs stamping on the ground.
Lily
By the water hole at the elephants’ side were lots of zebras drinking from the river but they never got splashed by the elephants. As well as the elephants using their trunks to spray the babies, some were wading into the water and sticking up their trunks like snorkels…. Just then the elephants from the water hole shouted out their war cry and retreated from the zebras.
While some children controlled the game other children, as observers, wrote notes to help them write their journal entries later. Here are William’s -excellent work for children just learning to make notes.
These journals are being made into books with covers inspired by African fabric we have looked at….
…and will include illustrated maps of Africa.
As well as having fantastic adventures and learning how to use the African Safari Wii game, Year 2 have discovered lots of information about the many animals that live in the Serengeti. They used some of the elephant facts to make a page of information about animals.
by Sam and Christopher C
Year 1 and 2 feel superfit after their walk down to Ashfield to take part in a range of sports activities in mixed teams with 4 other local schools. Well done to all the children for taking part so enthusiastically.
Year 2 entered a competition to grow potatoes, and since March Mrs Raybould, ably supported by Mrs Raw, has been tending to the plants.
They were harvested in time to enter the competition. In maths this morning Year 2 found out everything they could think of about the two types of potato.
We grew 1,444g or 1.444kg in total. The difference in the weight of the two crops was only 8g. The heaviest single potato was 85g and the lightest 1g – a difference of 84g. One type produced 22 potatoes, the other 28, so 50 in total and a difference of 6.
All that is left to decide is how we share 50 potatoes amongst 30 children fairly. And of course, to cook an eat them!
We are getting used to using the Wii now and how to find our way around the African Safari, so Day 5 brought lots of surprises. Here are a few journal extracts:-
Sam Luigi
Yesterday we had the best day ever because we found the most interesting animals on the game. We found a hyrax which was a little animal on some big rocks, a warthog walking through the grass, a fish jumping lots of times, a dangerous lion on top of a big rock and finally an ostrich with a tiny head and a thin neck.
Millie
Yesterday Year 2 class had a wonderful day in the adventurous water of the warthogs, or should I say, the fierceness of the lions and finally the house of the hyrax.
Grace
Yesterday my heart was pumping with excitement when I saw the lions.
Alex B
We saw some of the most amazing but most unusual animals, one that I hadn’t even heard of. When we saw them I stopped dead in amazement.
Rhys
Down by the river there was a big surprise. There was a hyrax sitting on a big rock. The hyrax was brown.
Chris S
There was a very interesting fish that was jumping up and down because it was trying to get to (go) the opposite way that the water was going.
Yesterday we saw the most amazing animals. We saw an animal called a hyrax. It looked like a small ferret or a beaver. It was on a rock on its back legs then two more came to join it. Near the rocks there was a river with lots of reeds. By the waterfall we saw a big fish jumping lots of times out of the water and back in again. When it went back in the water it made a big circle of ripples flowing around the stream. On the banks of the stream we saw some very very long grass and in the grass were some cliffs. Lions were basking on the top. Near the big tall cliffs were two small ostriches with very long necks. Even when they tried to eat they had to bend their necks at the very end near their heads, but surprisingly their heads were very small and very black. By the ostriches was a small grunting figure looming out of the grass. It looked like a cross between a calf and a piglet, but when we got closer we saw it looked more like a boar, but it really was a warthog.
As part of our Africa topic to help us find out a little more about the Masai people who live in the Serengeti, we read a story called Masai and I, then wrote about how their life differs from ours.
Here are a few well-crafted sentences:-
Alex B
The Masai people have lovely jewellery which has very strong colours, and as you get older you can wear bigger and thicker necklaces and bracelets.
William
I need to go to the zoo to see a giraffe but Masai people share the space with the animals, so they just need to go out of the door.
Bob
I wait for my dad for dinner. If I were Masai we would sit separately, sisters and mothers will (would) sit in one places, brothers and fathers in another place.
Charlotte J
If you lived in Africa (the Masai Mara) your house would (might) be made out of sticks and cow dung. They wet the cow dung so that they can use it almost like clay to spread out.
Today on our African Safari adventure we spotted ostriches for the first time – two of them grazing beside the stream. Our first mission tomorrow will be to search for their nest. Luckily for us, Chloe brought in an ostrich egg shell that her dad had brought back from South Africa, so we all know what size they are. What we don’t know is how many eggs an ostrich typically lays or how long they take to hatch.
She also brought in a steinbock hide and some South African rand, which have beautiful pictures of animals on them.
Rifka kindly brought in some different types of African fabric and some photos taken by a friend who had lived in Africa for a year. Here are some models with their helpers.
This batik fabric shows typical African patterns and the children have used it to give them ideas for the front covers of their journals.
Mrs Okoye, our resident Africa expert, kindly brought in some Nigerian money. 250 Naira is worth around £1.
